There’s a lot of hype around knowing what your “why” is in everything you do. Why do you want to get promoted? Why do you want to change teams? Why do you want to lose weight? Why do you want to breakup? Why do you want to change jobs? The theory is that the more you understand and believe your why, the more action you will take to get what you want.

I don’t disagree, but there’s one secret that the quizzes and books don’t tell you. And this secret is the key to guaranteeing that your why motivates you every time.

The secret to finding a “why” that guarantees to motivate and energize you every time is making it about you and not anyone else. If your why is so someone else can feel a certain way or have a certain experience, it’s a recipe for disaster.

For example, let’s say you don’t like your mom and can’t stand your step-dad, but are planning on taking your family to visit them. If your “why” is so your kids can have a relationship with their grandparents- I promise it’s not going to go well. You can provide opportunities for people to connect, but you can’t make anyone have a relationship.

Or maybe you think you are fat and want to lose weight. If your “why” is so people will want to date you, it’s not going to last long term. At the first rejection after losing the weight chances are you will start gaining it back.

Maybe you want to manage a team. If your “why” is so you can get promoted and be more respected by your peers, you are probably going to hate managing people.

These “whys” all sound logical and like they would be helpful, but they all depend on things outside of your control. You can’t control how people feel. You can’t control what other people do or say. When you give that up and focus on a why that’s about you, that’s when you become unstoppable.

If we take the examples above and make them about you instead, it might look something like the follow:

–I want to take my kids to visit with my mom and step-dad because I believe family is important and am the type of mom that prioritizes family even when I don’t want to.

–I want to lose weight because I feel more energized and willing to try new things when I’m not always thinking about my weight.

–I want to manage a team because I want to learn a new skill and help mentor others.

Theses whys are all about you. How YOU want to feel. What YOU want to do. Since you can’t control anyone but yourself, having a why about yourself is the way to be unstoppable at reaching your goals.

If you want help finding your why, let’s jump on the phone and get you some free coaching. So much can change in just 20 minutes. Sign up HERE.

Being an introvert does not mean you are shy. People are shy because they are worried about being judged. Being an introvert means you’re most as ease and have your best ideas when you are not overly stimulated in social settings. An extrovert is in their zone of genius working in groups or places with lots of social interaction.

Culturally in the US we are biased towards extroverts. When I went to school, we sat in rows and had some autonomy. Now my kids sit in groups and constantly do group work and are seen as outsiders if they want to work alone.

At work we sit in open seating areas with limited privacy and numerous social distractions. Some places even have completely open seating where you are not assigned a desk, but pick a different one to work at every day.

So how do you succeed at work when it seems like extroverts are at an advantage?

First, remember that how you receive inspiration does not determine how valuable it is. Knowing how to get that inspiration and being able to draw out ideas is what will make you a great leader and able to reach your goals. Your ideas will speak for themselves. Stay focused on adding value and less worried about saying it louder than the person next to you.

Second, trust the process. At Amazon we write docs and spend the first part of a meeting quietly and independently reading it. Everyone takes this time to form their own opinion, think of questions, and assess the proposal. This alone levels the playing field for introverts and extroverts. Trust this process.

Third, create an environment that enables you to do your best work. Find your own “space” at work that allows you to quietly get your work done. Find a rooftop deck, a comfy chair in a quiet corner, or an empty floor in another building. Create your own private work place if needed. Additionally, purposefully plan quiet thinking time in your day. Schedule a daily meeting with yourself where you get outside or go to your “space” and just think. Don’t try to get things done, but spend the time thinking about your project to get that inspiration.

People get promoted based on data around the results they drive. Not on who is the most outgoing. Stop believing you are disadvantaged because you are an introvert. Ghandi, Rosa Parks, and Eleanor Roosevelt did not let it stop them. Don’t let how you get inspiration hold you back from reaching your goals.

Chat soon,

LB

P.S. Want help being a successful introvert? Let’s jump on the phone and come up with a plan to get you there. Sign up for free coaching HERE.

My daughter is learning to play the piano. This week her teacher asked her to play a song and covered her hands with a sheet of paper so she couldn’t look down at her hands.

She was super uncomfortable at first, but she played the song faster and more accurate when she did not look at her fingers. It felt strange, but when she relied on her muscle memory and trusted what she knew, it worked so much better.

It literally blew her mind that she could play the song and not look at her hands.

It made me think, what areas are we looking at our hands when we should focus on muscle memory and trusting what we know.

Most of the time we are so worried about getting all the steps in our project identified and perfectly prioritized that we don’t trust what we know and start moving forward as quickly as we could.

To trust what you know and move forward without all the stress and anxiety, follow these 3 simple steps:

Clearly define what you are trying to accomplish.

STOP thinking about the unknowns or things you are not confident in.

START trusting what you do know and focus on the ONE next thing to figure out . Do that thing and then focus on the next ONE thing.

Maybe you need to write a doc and present it in a few weeks. STOP thinking about how hard it’s going to be to write. START creating the basic outline all docs follow and focusing on getting metrics to drive the insights and suggestions.

Maybe you’re to-do list is a mile long and growing. STOP thinking about how long the list is. START thinking about the one thing that needs to be done next.

Or maybe your manager is dragging their feet creating a plan for your promotion. STOP thinking about where your manager is lacking. START focusing on how else you could get clarity around a path to promotion.

The next time you find yourself annoyed, stressed, or anxious, ask yourself what part you could stop paying attention to and start focusing on the one next step to get you moving forward.

Chat soon,

LB

P.S. Want help learning how to feel better and stop dreading work? I offer a limited number of free coaching sessions so let’s jump on the phone and get you there. Sign up HERE

Last week we talked about motivation and how we tend to lose it as our thoughts about reaching our goals change.

If you have a goal you really want to reach, knowing how to keep moving forward when you feel overwhelmed, burnt out, and confused is the key to reaching it. So many people make progress, but quit because they don’t know how to keep going without it feeling like a grind and wearing them down until it’s no longer a goal they even want.

For example, if you really want to start a side gig, but you’ve hit a few bumps in the road, work has gotten extra crazy, and you are just tired, most people will stop working on it until they are feeling better.

But that time never comes. There’s never enough time. There’s never the right time. There’s never the perfect situation. Waiting for all of that is just an easy excuse out.

Learning how to feel the stress and overwhelm and fatigue is what you need to do, but chances are no one taught you how.

How many times do you think about how stressed and anxious you are?

Now tell me, what does stress and anxiety feel like? Physically in your body, how do they feel? If you had to explain these feelings to an alien that had no concept of physical feelings, how would you describe them?

Where in your body do you feel it? Does it have a color? Does it move? Is it a mass or shape? What does it make you feel like doing? How do stress and anxiety feel the same? How do they feel different?

If you are like most people, you are probably struggling to describe the physical feelings of these emotions. How crazy is that! We all tell people how stressed and anxious we are, but we don’t even really know what they feel like. We just know we don’t like it.

To keep moving forward when you lack motivation is learning how to feel your emotions. By describing it, you are actually feeling them. Emotions are chemicals in your body and the more you “feel” them, the faster your body processes them and releases them.

When we have a negative emotion, our primitive brain wants us to run away and do something that feels better, but if you turn into that negative feeling, take a deep breath, and start becoming familiar with it, you will no longer live at its effect. When you are good at feeling your emotions, you are able to keep moving forward because you are not wasting time try to feel better. You just feel the negative and keep focused on what you want to spend your time on.

So the next time you are not moving forward and doing the things you want to be doing, stop resisting those negative emotions and practice feeling them. It will take some time and you will want to distract yourself with food, the internet, or other things on your to do list, but practice feeling the negative and start taking back control. You can’t die from a feeling, but you can learn to live an amazing life no matter how you feel.

Chat soon,

LB

P.S. Want help learning how to feel better and stop living at their effect of your emotions? I offer a limited number of free coaching sessions so let’s jump on the phone and get you there. Sign up HERE.

Motivation is an amazing thing. It’s helps us be willing to change habits we don’t want to keep. It helps us get things done. It makes us excited along the way, but what happens when you’re not motivated, but still want to do all the things?

Maybe you want to get up earlier to exercise or have a few minutes to be still and start the morning off without rushing into life. Maybe you want to spend time really figuring out what you want out of your career. Maybe you want to start the side gig you keep thinking about, but never have the time or energy to work on.

We all tend to have things we want, but give ourselves the easy out if we are not feeling motivation. Image what your life would be like if motivation was not required. How different would your life be? Where would your career be? What would your day look like?

Motivation can help us get started, but if we really want the result, it’s so much more powerful to not be dependent on motivation.

Say for example you wanted to start a side gig. Most people get super excited and motivated when they come up with the idea. They find time to work on a business plan and move forward. Fast forward a few weeks and the motivation might be gone because you ran into a few roadblocks and got busy with your day job. Most of us keep thinking about our dream side gig, but don’t keep working on it when we are tired, or stressed, or overwhelmed, or feeling anything less than motivated.

Motivation is often temporary because our beliefs change as we get more evidence to support or disprove them. You were motivated at first because you knew your side gig was going to be your dream job one day. When you run into a few snags and don’t have the time, that belief in your dream job starts to get harder to hold onto and the motivation is gone. Now you are stressed and overwhelmed so of course you are not going to keep working on it.

Did you know that stress and overwhelm are all just feelings and you can’t actually die from a feeling? It’s true.

The key to reaching your goals is learning how to feel the negative emotions that WILL come up and still keep moving forward. Motivation is not required.

Next week I’ll teach you how to keep moving forward when those negative emotions come up, because they will.

Chat soon,

LB

P.S. Want help figuring out how to keep moving forward towards you goals even when it feels like there’s not enough time and you are just too tired? Let’s jump on the phone and figure out how to get you there. I offer a limited number of free coaching sessions so sign up HERE before I have to start a waitlist.